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Lucius always fell asleep after they made love. Even when it was morning with the daylight starting to stream through the east window and the first birds already singing, he would drop off with her in his arms, limp and spent. These were times Julia wished could last forever, the two of them united, hardly knowing where one began and the other left off, no world beyond their own clasped bodies.
Julia was glad to waken before him. She could lie in the stillness, imagining another life in another time, another place where he was just the man she loved, where they would have many more years together. She would give up all the gold, the pomp, the ceremonies for that life.
Only four summers out of fifteen had gone by, she thought, when her husband did not have to take the field against some invader. He did not think it right, he told her, to send others into dangers he did not face. Like so many women in the province, she had to watch her beloved march off with only the certainty that he would return with his shield or upon it. She had come to yearn for winter, to dread the first warm breezes of May that stirred the curtains now.
On the old maps she had seen in the library, the frontier lay a hundred miles off. Then, any trespassers would have been surrounded and defeated long before they reached Gaul. Now, when spring came, and the snow melted, there was only Lucius and his legion to keep the darkness at bay. Twice, Noviodunum itself had been besieged with every door and window barricaded and everyone who could carry a weapon armed to the teeth.
When those blue eyes opened, he would be Lucius Publius Syagrius, King of the Romans, as the tribes called him, procurator of the last Roman province in Gaul, all that remained of the Empire in the West.
What was to become of him, of them? Clovis was marching south, with a force some said was larger than Attila's horde. The tribes east of the Somme were joining him - if he gave them the chance - before he fell upon them and slaughtered them. Sooner or later, he would cross the river, a direct challenge to Lucius and all he'd fought so long to defend.
The man who lay beside her feared nothing. Yet, with so many others so frightened, it was hard not to be troubled. Even Pendra, his friend since boyhood, had sent no word from the old Roman fort.
Was Marius all right? She understood why Lucius had sent the boy to Pendra to be trained in arms, safe from his father's enemies. He was their only child, and the faint scar below her navel told her there would be no others.
At fourteen, their son was sturdy, quick and strong, much like the man Julia envisioned he would become. But she still feared for him and wished she had him near. God willing, he would rule one day in his father's stead and ride at the head of his Romans. If something should happen to him....
Lucius stirred, and she moved closer to him, opening the clasp on her robe to show her small, firm breasts. Whenever they slept together, Julia wanted to be the first thing his gaze fell on when he woke.
Lucius awakened with a start, his eyes darting everywhere, as though he were in camp and heard the enemy close by. As always, it took him a moment to realize he was safe with her.
He smiled up at her and drew her to him, tossing aside the covers and pressing the length of her body to his. When the warm weather came, he liked to sleep naked. Since he was king here, he'd told her, he'd wear as much or as little clothing as suited him, at least in his own bed chamber. She had always been a bit shy, not with him, but for fear that some messenger might start pounding on the door. Lucius, especially if he was still half asleep, might revert to his campaign habits and order the courier to enter at once, whether Julia had got her robe on or not. It had happened often enough, now that Clovis was on the move.
Fifteen years she'd shared his bed. Yet the lean, hard lines of his body still excited her. Even the scars that marked him were places to touch and kiss. Some of those wounds, she had dressed herself. Only with the caress of her hand and her lips could she smother thoughts of what might have been, had one of those blows struck a bit higher or lower or gone deeper.
He stroked her black hair and nibbled on her ear.
"You'll go and see Marius today?"
"As soon as the morning council meeting is over," Syagrius replied, rolling over and getting out of bed.
She sat up. "Being 'King of the Romans' seems mostly a matter of meetings," she mock-pouted. "When do you get to wear a crown? When do I get to put on all those wonderful robes I see in the pictures? When do people start falling on their knees when you pass and prostrating themselves before daring to speak to you? When do you get thirty valets to help you dress, like the Emperor in Constantinople - or maybe only fifteen? You're just a king after all. When do they put you and me in mosaics, surrounded by our abjectly grateful subjects?"
For years, her husband had forbidden anyone to utter that title in his presence. Roman citizens living in his domain never used it. Finally, he had surrendered to the inevitable, at least when he dealt with the tribes. Now they could joke about it.
"Never, I hope. I was appointed procurator by the Emperor and confirmed by the Senate to govern this province for Rome, not to crown myself a tyrant like Clovis or Alaric. The seal I use on all my documents says I am procurator and will say it until I die, or another comes to take my place. If the Empire could spare a few legions to take Gaul back, I'd be the first to welcome them.
"What was I supposed to do anyway?" Syagrius mused as he dressed. "There's no Empire here in the West, hasn't been for ten years, even on paper. Someone had to keep order, keep the roads open, keep the Saxons from plundering the coast, keep the Goths from swallowing up the rest of Gaul, keep the Franks from stealing everything in sight.
"What was I to tell my legion? 'It's all over now, men. No more Empire. Just go home and look after yourselves. That is, if you can get home over the roads we'll have without your patrols, and if the bandits don't kill you on the way. You'll get your back pay from Rome sometime or other. Just don't ask when.' Was that how their loyalty was to be repaid?"
"Lucius, Lucius," Julia interrupted, seeing he was about to launch into his favorite speech, "you don't have to convince me or anyone else in the province. Your soldiers are the best troops in Gaul. They would follow you through the Pillars of Hercules and beyond. Men come a hundred miles or more to serve with you. Even when their enlistments are up, they don't want to go home. There's not another ruler in the West who has as many veterans in his army as you.
"The people respect you and trust you. The taxes are fair. The laws are just. Markets are open, trade is protected. The coast is safe. Anyone unhappy with your governing has only to look beyond our borders to see what would happen without you and your legion."
Syagrius nodded and went back to shaving, something he insisted on doing himself. Barbers, he complained, were too talkative and too slow.
"And I love you so much it still frightens me sometimes," Julia confided, running her fingers slowly down his spine.
His eyes softened as he turned to look at her. He wondered sometimes if she understood how much of his own strength was drawn from hers. Without her, he thought, he'd not be half the man he was. He kissed her softly as she helped him on with his toga.
Julia stepped back to admire her husband as he adjusted the folds. He looked as Roman as any of the portrait sculptures she'd seen in the Forum, nose just slightly aquiline, enough to give him a commanding look, eyes sharp, mouth firm but not grim. In another time, she thought, he might have been an Emperor, one of the best, like Aurelius or Hadrian, able to restore Roman rule and Roman law to a world gone mad. Now he had only his legion and his courage.
"Let's get something to eat before the meeting starts," Syagrius said. "It will probably be a long one."
For years, Syagrius had kept the old Roman custom of having only a hunk of dark bread dipped in sauce and a cup of water for his breakfast. But Julia had persuaded him over time to take something more, a dish of porridge, some fruit, even a glass of wine, so he wouldn't be so short with the counselors when they began to expand on whatever was troubling them that week.
She also tried to be present when he received petitioners. Some of the requests were more like prayers, better offered at an altar than before a procurator. Others were simply ridiculous. Until Julia had persuaded him to keep a rein on his temper and see the humor in the situation, those petitioners could count themselves fortunate to escape without a fine or a flogging. But there were always some matters that were serious and needed as much attention as he could spare.
Tribes that had not been under Roman law for decades brought their disputes to him. The word of a Roman official had meant nothing to them until he had come to be procurator and taken the trouble to learn their languages. Most of the time, he needed no interpreter and was even able to apply his skill in rhetoric to these strange tongues. He had no authority to enforce any of his decisions beyond the border. Yet the tribes promised to do as he decided. If they broke their word, he would never hear any of their cases again, and their feuds would have no end.
From the first, her husband had wanted her beside him at council meetings. In deference to the delegates, she said nothing, but heard and remembered everything. What Julia recalled was a better record of the proceedings than any scribe could make. Syagrius was always eager to learn from her what had actually been said and by whom. He was quick to anger but not vindictive. The counselors could speak as they wished. Still, there were sometimes nuances he had missed, but Julia had not.
